Israel condemns protest by reservists

Members of Intelligence Unit 8200 earlier sent a letter to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying they refused to 'take part in actions against Palestinians'.

Jerusalem // Israeli officials denounced 43 reservists for declaring they would no longer serve in the military’s main intelligence unit to protest against the government’s policies towards the Palestinians.

The members of Intelligence Unit 8200 sent a letter to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying they refused to “take part in actions against Palestinians” and “continue serving as tools in cementing the military’s control over the Occupied Territories”.

The letter, sent last week, singled out the unit’s surveillance of Palestinians, and accused it of collecting information that “is used for political persecution” and “harms innocent people”.

The Israeli defence minister, Moshe Yaalon, called the protest a “vile and reprehensible attempt to aid the lies and delegitimization spread around the world against Israel and its soldiers, without any basis”.

Yuval Steinitz, the minister in charge of intelligence, said on Sunday that the protest was “an act of subversion that deserves punishment”.

While thousands of Israeli reservists over the years have refused on principle to serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, risking military prison sentences, group protests in elite units are rare.

In a letter of reply on Sunday, 200 veterans of the unit denounced their former comrades’ refusal to serve.

“We wish to express shock, disgust and complete disassociation from the regrettable letter that was written by our comrades from the unit,” they said.

The protest comes at a time when Israel has been criticised internationally over its recent military operation against Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians, as well as militants.

The protest has the potential to cause “serious damage” if it hurts the intelligence unit’s work, former military intelligence chief Shlomit Gazit said.

Mr Gazit, now a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said it was too early to tell whether that would be the case.

He advised the military to avoid any severe reprisals against the reservists, arguing that the publicity would only aid their cause. He suggested the soldiers be reassigned to duties outside intelligence work.

* Bloomberg with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse